HBT, I need your help. My girlfriend's father owns a restaurant and has offerred to serve my beer there if I can arrange it. The problem is, I have no idea how I would go about doing this. He said that I can brew there if needed.

I assume that I would need to either (a) turn his restaurant into a brewpub or (b) rent barrel space somewhere and operate as a microbrewery, and then somehow distribute the beer to the restaurant.

Does anyone have an idea how to do either one of these? Everything I found on google gave me a headache; I'm not legally inclined.

HBT, I need your help. My girlfriend's father owns a restaurant and has offerred to serve my beer there if I can arrange it. The problem is, I have no idea how I would go about doing this. He said that I can brew there if needed.

I assume that I would need to either (a) turn his restaurant into a brewpub or (b) rent barrel space somewhere and operate as a microbrewery, and then somehow distribute the beer to the restaurant.

Does anyone have an idea how to do either one of these? Everything I found on google gave me a headache; I'm not legally inclined.

Thanks

You will need to get licensed as a brewery, and either on site at his restaurant, or in another commercial space. You definitely need a lawyer, but you can get started on your own.

I'm not sure of the laws in California on the advantages from brewing onsite (brewpub) and opening a microbrewery, and how small you can be to self-distribute to his restaurant, so those are things to check into for sure.

__________________Broken Leg BreweryGiving beer a leg to stand on since 2006

Laws are different by state but the general rule of thumb is that he'd have to turn it into a brewpub with the appropriate brewpub license and hire you as a brewer or... as you said, open your own commercial brewery and distribute. The latter is harder and more expensive for you but does have the upside as potentially being further reaching than just his restaurant.. other bars, tasting room, etc.

Another option would be to get your beer brewed by a contract brewer and sell through a single distributor (if you could find one). You'll still need a lawyer to set everything up, but there would be less wrangling with the TTB/ABC.

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